Watercolour on paper

56 × 76 cm. 22 x 29 7/8 in.

Signed in Chinese and dated on bottom right
PROVENANCE
Apollo Art Gallery, Taipei
Acquired directly by private Asian collector from the above

March Alone among the Mountains and Rivers
Shiy De-Jinn's Eternal Tamsui

“My Landscape painting is meant to express the easterner's profound grace by western watercolour and give birth to new explanations for nature. My colours also contain the fun of Chinese ink and embody refreshment and vigour of life. ”
——Shiy De-Jinn

Having stayed at Taiwan for more than ten years after the graduation from Hangzhou National Art College, Shiy has turned Taiwan's natural and historical landscapes into his topics for continuous creation. His hobby is to wander among the mountains, rivers and civil buildings in order to get a touch of the local customs. In1966, Shiy came back to Taiwan from the U.S. and France. He made up his mind to “pursue the new method of expression of Chinese art using Chinese emotions”. His deep love and interest in Taiwan's scenery was the motivation for him to turn back to nature and live with it. In the meantime, he tried to recreate traditional aesthetics, bringing Chinese poetry into his artworks. In the 1970s, he finally found the innovative spirit of painting which combined Chinese ink conception and western watercolour.

“Tamsui” is one of the most beloved and continuously adopted topics of Shiy. Its' foggy feature inspired his mixing of ink and watercolour due to their same qualities. His fascinating rendering technique became a unique language of him to transform nature. Riverside of Tamsui in this auction is a vivid example of this.

One Heart into Tamsui, Millions of Poetries Awake

The composition of leaving spaces on top and bottom demonstrates the vastness of the scenery with the river and the sky being a part of each other. During the creation process, the artist wets out the paper with his brushes and covers it with tinge ink to let it permeate. Then the mountain is drawn with bluish violet and the paddy field is filled with jasper. The figure of the islands on the side of the river is contoured in black. Next, the fog and the reflection is half rendered and half blended using water. The picture integrates reality and virtuality, illustrating a changing scenery. The artwork also combines spiritual atmosphere with humanity and establishes a poetic feeling of “ship docks at the foggy riverside” through the lush trees, houses and old ships in the shallow bay.

With one's soul living with Tamsui, this is the expression of Shiy that unveils the truth of nature through hollowness. The artist's body and soul is in harmony with nature, which is the reason why his watercolour in ink has such charm that can be seen, touched, lived and made a poetry of.

Price estimate:
HKD: 220,000 – 350,000
USD: 28,400 – 45,200

Auction Result:
HKD: 590,000